


A Gentle Touch

by ambyr



Category: A Brother's Price - Wen Spencer
Genre: Curtain Fic, F/M, Gardening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:39:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambyr/pseuds/ambyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time for Jerin to begin renovating the husband quarters--but he encounters resistance from an unexpected source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gentle Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [behind_the_trigger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/behind_the_trigger/gifts).



There were six swatches of yellow paper pinned to the wall across from the bed, and even in the steady mid-morning light Jerin couldn't tell the slightest bit of difference between them. He edged one foot over the side of the bed, wondering if he could slide out from under Ren's arm and inspect the wallpaper samples more closely. As soon as he wriggled his torso, though, her arms clamped around him.

"Mmph," she said, blinking sleepily. "Don't go." 

She threw a leg over his for emphasis, pinning him. Without conscious thought, he rolled toward her, letting her arms tighten further. Her eyes were still closed, but that didn't stop her from finding his lips. His mouth parted, and her questing tongue darted inside for a long, languorous kiss. He could feel his body begin to respond to her touch, and the memories of their joining the previous night only intensified his longing. When he shifted his hips, trying to slide beneath her, Ren chuckled. 

"Impatient, are we?" She didn't wait for an answer, but rolled on top of him in a fluid, easy motion that enveloped him in her inner heat before he even registered her weight.

By the time they were finished, the angle of light sliding in through the window suggested distinctly that it was no longer mid morning. Jerin was still enough of a farm boy to feel guilt at not being up at dawn, much less still abed by nearly noon, so he felt no pang of regret when Ren stood and began collecting her clothing. Well, he admitted privately to himself, maybe a _little_ pang.

"I wish I could stay, love, but there's a meeting about fishing taxes that can't be put off any more, and some inventor who wants to demonstrate her new waterwheel in hopes of crown patronage. Fascinating stuff." Ren grimaced. "Lucky you, not having to sit through it. Though you have a busy day yourself."

"I do?" Jerin blinked, sitting up straighter in bed. The blanket pooled down around his hips, and Ren paused a moment, frankly admiring of his bare chest. 

"If I didn't already have my boots on . . . ah, well. Yes, you do. The remodeling of the suite is ready to start. We've found families to do the work, good families. The Barnes can convey your instructions to them."

Jerin cast a panicked eye back toward the swatches of wallpaper. "But I haven't even finished deciding what I want!" He felt ridiculous even as he said it. Indecision had never been a flaw of his before; he could survey a half-full pantry and build a dinner menu in the time it took to cross the kitchen to the hearth and take down a pot. Back home, though, constraints had always guided him; they had _this_ and _this_ , so that must go with _that_. Here, the choices were limitless. 

Ren stabbed a hand behind her toward the samples. "That one."

"You're not even looking," Jerin protested. He stood, padding across the cool floor, to examine the wallpapers more closely--and, incidentally, lean against Ren. She turned to face the wall with him, letting him settle into the crook of her arm. 

From here, he could see the minute details that differentiated the designs. The first one had glossy rose vines twining across the otherwise matte paper, while the one Ren had pointed at was flecked with gold. Another swatch was textured like a woven straw basket--comforting in its familiarity, but not, perhaps, the best choice for the otherwise rich room.

"It does match the floor best," Jerin finally admitted. The marble had the same glints scattered through it. "Maybe too much so, but if we go a shade darker on the wainscoting and carpet to set it off--yes, that will work."

"See? You should trust your wife." She kissed the top of his head. "Even when she's not looking."

"I do," Jerin protested. "I just want to make sure we do this right. I want this to be a good place--as happy for our children as it was for you and your sisters."

Ren's voice softened. "It will be, love. It will just take a little time."

"How long?"

"About a month, I'm told. We've blocked off a series of guest rooms where you can stay in the meantime, in the wing where your family once stayed. They'll be well-guarded." She pulled him closer--probably not even consciously, he thought. "It's not quite as secure as the husband quarters, but that can't be helped. You can't stay here while they're working, and it will take time to replace the carpets and tear out the rose bushes."

From just beyond the doorway to the bedroom there was a gasp, a crash, and the sound of running feet. Ren's hands were instantly on her guns. They both spun around in time to catch a flash of red hair. The glimpse was enough to stop Ren from calling out for the guards immediately, but not enough to keep her from gesturing firmly for Jerin to stay behind her as she went to investigate. 

Peering over his shoulder, he could see the shattered remains of a tea tray. One whole blueberry tart sat upright in the middle of a puddle of tea; the others were upended, or crumbled.

"What in the world . . . ?" Ren asked.

Jerin frowned at the debris, resisting the urge to go hunting for a broom. The blueberry tart was familiar. He pointed, drawing it to Ren's attention "Trini brings me those sometimes. She says they remind her of me. Something about, uh, my not having thorns." He could feel his skin flushing as he remembered the rest of that conversation. Fortunately, Ren was too focused to notice and tease him further.

"But why would Trini run?" Ren's hands were still on her guns, though her grip had relaxed. "I suppose she heard us talking, but I thought she was _glad_ the suite was being redone. She has such terrible memories from when--Trini?" 

Ren would have called again, louder, but Jerin's hand on her shoulder stopped her. Trini often required a gentle touch. Maybe--probably--this was one of those times. "Let me go looking for her?" he asked. "That is, if you think it's safe."

Ren frowned again at the tea tray, then sighed. "I suppose it is. I'll go reassure the guards--though if they heard that, they _should_ have been pounding down the door." That she was still on edge was evident in the fact that she didn't even try to steal a final parting kiss. 

For all his confident words to Ren, Jerin caught himself twitching at shadows several times as he stepped softly through the suite. It was only when he saw Trini, sitting alone on a bench in the rose garden with her face buried in her hands, that he relaxed. His relief was strong enough that he barely noticed the sharp shock of cold when he pushed through the glazed doors into the winter air.

He let his steps grow louder, deliberately breaking dry twigs beneath his feet, so he wouldn't startle her as he approached. The garden was full of debris shed from the shriveled brown and black bushes that lined its paths. Jerin doubted Keifer had cared much for roses--and in the six years since his death, the garden had been left largely untended.

By the time he reached Trini, her hands were folded neatly in her lap, although her shoulders still hunched forward. Jerin crouched in front of her and held his hands out, palm up. After a moment, Trini reached out with one hand and tangled her fingers through his. Her other hand stayed in her lap. This close, Jerin could see that she was holding something--the long-dead remains of a rose, just a few wrinkled petals somehow still clinging to their stem long after autumn had faded. As she twirled it, another petal dropped free and fell at her feet.

"My father loved the roses," Trini said, unexpectedly. Her voice was quiet and flat, and her eyes didn't meet his. "For everything else, we had gardeners. But he tended the roses with his own hands." She stopped, gaze still fixed on the dead flower she held.

Jerin hesitated, trying to decide how best to draw her out. It was hard with Trini, sometimes, to know when she needed silence and when she wanted more. "Were they beautiful?" he ventured.

"Very. There was one, a white one, he bred himself. No one else had one like it." Jerin could hear the pride shining through her detached tone. "He used to get up at dawn to collect the pollen."

She fell silent again. He knew she was grieving for her father, as all of his wives sometimes did. But why had she fled the room in such distress? Jerin replayed his conversation with Ren in his head--and flinched as the obvious struck him. "And now we're going to tear them out," he said, filled with a wave of sympathy. 

Trini nodded, a single, short jerk of her head. "They don't mean anything to _you_ ," she said, matter-of-fact rather than accusatory. "But Ren should know better."

Inwardly, Jerin winced. His wives rarely sniped at each other, which left him a little at loss when they did. He hoped the guards would keep Ren busy a little while longer. "Ren cares," he said. "I know she does. And I see why the roses are important." He settled more firmly back on his heels so he could look up without straining his neck and managed, at last, to catch Trini's eye. "But, Trini, I don't think your father would want you to be surrounded by dead flowers."

"They're not dead!" Trini said, suddenly passionate. "They're not." She swept her free hand in a semi-circle, gesturing at the shriveled canes that surrounded her. In her vehemence, she sent the twig flying. It lodged in Jerin's hair. "If they look that way to you, it's just because you don't know anything about gardening. And neither does Ren," she added darkly.

It was true that Ren didn't share her younger sister's passion for plants, but Jerin felt slightly indignant about his own dismissal. "I know a lot about growing peas and potatoes," he protested. "But you're right. I don't know anything about roses. I'll listen, though, if you want to teach me."

"Oh, Jerin." Trini reached for his face. At first he thought she merely meant to pluck the twig free, but instead she pulled him toward her, settling his head against her knee and combing her fingers slowly through his hair. It felt soothing. He rocked on his heels as he leaned into her hands, then found his balance again. "They're not like peas and potatoes."

"I believe you," Jerin said. She seemed more relaxed now, so he risked letting his voice grow teasing. "Although I doubt your royal highness ever grew vegetables."

"I didn't," Trini admitted. Jerin couldn't see her through the hair that now veiled his face, but he thought he could hear the smile in her voice. "But that's not the point." She tugged slightly at his hair for emphasis. "They can look dead, roses. They can be brittle and leafless and brown. That's what happens when you neglect them. But if you look--look!--there's still healthy wood underneath at the base. In winter, it's hard to see, but in spring there will be flashes of green. I know it seems now like there's nothing to save. But if you prune them back and just give them space and time, they can grow and flourish again."

Jerin had looked up at her command, trying to see the glimpse of life she promised. But suddenly, it seemed very important that he leave off that hunt and meet her gaze. "Like you," he said, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. Maybe that was going too far.

But Trini only nodded. "Like me."

Jerin took a deep breath. "I'll tell Ren," he said decisively. "They can do the rest of the husband quarters. The walls, the furniture, the curtains. But the garden--the garden we'll do ourselves."

" _Our_ selves?" Trini asked. "You said you didn't know anything about roses."

"You can teach me," he told her. "And in return, I'll, I'll teach you how to grow peas. And potatoes."

Trini laughed. Jerin thought sometimes he loved her laugh best of all, maybe because he heard it so seldom. Odelia and Lylia laughed easily, and Halley could always be provoked with a ribald joke, even if sometimes he himself didn't understand half of what he was saying. (In fact, that seemed to make her laugh harder.) Even Ren was easy enough to tease into good humor once she set aside the weight of being Eldest for the evening. But Trini--Trini's laugh was rare and unpredictable, and sweet as birdsong for it.

"I can see you've sorted things out," Ren said drily from the arched garden entrance. Jerin hadn't heard her enter, and only Trini's hand on his head kept him from bobbing up like a duck surfacing in a pond at the sound of her voice. Instead, he watched the steady progress of her boots through the veiled screen of the rose bushes. When she reached them, she plunked a fresh tea tray on the bench beside Trini. "Mind telling me what the fuss was about?"

Embarrassingly, Jerin's stomach rumbled as the scent of tarts wafted to him. Both Trini and Ren looked at him. He blushed, but made the best of the attention. "Trini is going to show me how to prune the roses."

"But they're dead," Ren said.

Jerin could feel Trini stiffen. When she spoke, though, it wasn't with the petulant tone of a quarreling sister; it was with the certainty of a queen casting judgement. "There's a chance they can be saved."

Ren gave her sister an assessing look. "Do you really think so?"

"Yes." 

Jerin felt a surge of pride at the quiet strength in Trini's tone. Ren must have felt similar, because she leaned forward and enveloped her sister in a hug. It left Jerin squished awkwardly between his wives' legs, but he was hardly going to complain.

"Then of course you should do it," Ren said. She looked down, eying Jerin appraisingly, then grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He found himself still pressed between them, but now he was less squished than delicately cradled by their strength and warmth. "Although I'm not sure how I feel about you recruiting our pretty husband, here, for your horticulture" she added, mock-stern. "What if he chips a nail?"

"Ren!" Jerin protested, but he could feel the corners of his mouth twitching--and see Trini was smiling as well.

"Then we'll all fuss over him terribly, and not let him leave bed until he's recovered," she assured Ren. "Although, if you're that worried, you could lend a hand yourself."

"Prophets forfend!" Ren threw her hands up in the air. "No, I'll leave the gardening to you, unless you _want_ all the roses to end up dead in truth. Although I'm sure Odelia will be glad to lend a hand to your scheme." More softly, she added, "I miss Father too, you know. Even if his affinity for plants never quite rubbed off on me."

"I know," Trini agreed, and hugged her back. 

Jerin closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of being held by both his wives. He could have stood there forever--but his stomach betrayed him, rumbling again. The embrace broke apart.

"Well," Ren said, "if all that's settled, perhaps we had best let our poor husband eat breakfast before he wastes away from hunger."

Jerin blushed. He wanted to protest that he was fine--but it seemed simpler, somehow, to take the first pastry from Trini's outstretched hand. 

"While I eat," he said "you can start teaching me about roses."


End file.
